Second Grade Sweet Shop!

I always always always love doing this project. The kids love it. It’s bright, colorful, and everybody has their own ideas and can display them beautifully.

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Paul Klee’s Pumpkin Patch

Second graders are learning about Paul Klee and his use of lines, shapes, and colors. They answered the prompt, “if Paul Klee painted a jack-o-lantern, what would it look like?” We also discussed value before painting so we would have multiple oranges instead of just one.

*update!*
These are finished and they look so good all together in “Paul’s Pumpkin Patch!”

Monster Mama Screaming Portraits

I found this great project at the end of last year and have almost waited too late to do it this year. It will probably be our final project for the year and the kids are loving it. The original lesson can be found over at Art Rocks! She was inspired by the Monster Mama book by Liz Rosenburg, illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I thought I would also tie in some art history in addition to the literacy aspect by showing them Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Like I said, they are loving it.
The first day, I introduced them to the book and the painting and then we drew our screaming faces with pencil. Most classes also had time to trace all of their pencil lines with Sharpie.
The next class was spent discussing how awesome oil pastels are and how to blend them.
The final class will be spent experimenting with using a straw and paint to blow out the top of the head. They are so excited about this step and I’m looking forward to sharing the results.
Check out where we are so far…

Henri Rousseau Jungle Collages

This is another lesson that I’ve been doing for years but have never documented.
Second grade discusses Henri Rousseau and how we can use a combination of our imaginations and real life to put together a composition of something or some place that we’ve never seen before.
Everything is made from cut paper and they always turn out so colorful.

 

Delving into Dia De Los Muertos!

One of my newest joys is teaching about Dia De Los Muertos or “Day of the Dead.” It is such a meaningful and colorful day with so much artistic influence in the celebrations. I am in love with sugar skulls and catrinas and yarn paintings!

My school has started a Spanish Club this year and the kids are learning to speak but they are also learning lots about the culture. Next week we will be painting faces and hopefully making some small art projects to go along with learning about the holiday. The bottom picture has four examples of the face painting they will get to choose from at the next meeting!

I’ve started talking about it with my first graders this week and we are making some calaveras. Here are some of the results. I’ll add more as we finish!

Pattern Owls

Second grade’s second artist to discuss is Gustav Klimt. They love all of the busy patterns (or as they say, “patterins”???) and designs and colors… As do I. 🙂 so we drew the outline of an owl in sharpie on a 9×12 paper and added the designs with crayons. The second class, we cut our owls out and then painted them with watercolors.
They will look beautiful on my “Hoo” loves fall art board!

Japanese Watercolor Scrolls

I saw a version of this on Artsonia and altered it a little for my own class. They turned out so well and the kids thought it was very cool – I guess because it was something different than the everyday 9″x12″ piece of paper. I’ll add a few more up close pictures next week.